Electric utilities are able to manage load conditions using various tools at their disposal. For example, a customer of the electric utility may have enrolled in a plan that allows the utility, for example, to temporarily shut off or otherwise adjust customer equipment via one or more demand response (DR) devices. Allowing the utility to shut off or adjust settings on customer equipment during periods of high demand allows the utility to manage system-wide consumption in response to supply conditions. For example, during hot summer days, a utility may turn off one or more air conditioning units on one or more feeders in order to shed load on those feeders. A utility may turn off those air conditioning units for a number of reasons, including, for example, a downed transmission line, a spike in the price of electricity, or the failure of equipment, e.g., a substation transformer.
In addition to turning off or adjusting customer equipment in order to shed load, electric utilities may also request customers enrolled in a plan to generate electricity to supplement the electricity on the electric grid via distributed energy resources (DER). For example, an electric utility may ask a customer enrolled in such a plan to turn on a diesel generator to produce electricity that is sold to the electric utility.